THE ROLE OF THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT
The Familiar Spirit. Julia Kidd.
48 SPRING 2021 JASON LEE THE ROLE OF THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT IN THE GLANVILLE-WEBSTER WITCHCRAFT DEBATE
Jason Lee Written for the Health, Humanism, and Society Scholars Medical Humanities Practicum (MDHM 430) Dr. John Mulligan
Introduction
Recent accounts of scientific advancement from the Middle Ages to the Age of Enlightenment often overcome a prior scholarly tendency to draw distinctions between the superstitious practices of the Dark Ages and the rational sciences of the Enlightenment. Largely discredited nowadays, prior discussions of the decline in witchcraft in early modern England often glorified the scientific revolution as a radical break from medieval superstition.1 An example that seemingly contradicts the assumption that science became progressively enlightened in early modern England is the Glanvill-Webster debate, which pitted the Anglican clergyman Joseph Glanvill against the radical sectarian physician John Webster. Whereas Joseph Glanvill, who attempted to adhere to the experimental method put forth by the Royal Society, argued in support of the existence of witchcraft in his 1668 A Blow at Modern Sadducism, John Webster, who was an ardent supporter of occult practices such as alchemy and astrology, argued against the existence of witchcraft in his 1677 The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft. In 1681, a year
1. Peter Elmer, Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 176.
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after Glanvill’s death, the enlargement of A Blow at Modern Sadducism was published as the Saducismus Triumphatus.
Given that the Glanvill-Webster debate complicated the simple narrative of modern scientific progress, historians such as Thomas Jobe have also shifted away from the assumption that a surge in scientific advances was the main contributor to the decline in witchcraft. Rather than focusing solely on the science of early modern England in discussing the shifts in witchcraft, Jobe emphasized the importance of acknowledging the religion and politics of Restoration England.2 In his article, Jobe proposed that paradoxes of the Glanvill-Webster debate can be resolved by contextualizing the scientific beliefs of this period in terms of the religious and political alignments of Restoration England. Lasting from 1660 to 1685, Restoration England was the period after Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth when Charles II returned to the throne. Following his return as king, Charles II established an exclusive body of Anglican clergy that refused admittance to Catholics and nonconformists ranging from Presbyterians to radical sectarians. Within the Anglican clergy, however, a group of clergymen called latitudinarians was distinguished by their views of religious moderation and scientific rationality.3
According to Jobe, previous historians attempted to resolve the paradox by proposing that the broad explanatory powers of occultism allowed occultists to provide alternative naturalistic explanations to phenomena that would otherwise be interpreted as Satan’s influence in the natural world. However, as Jobe pointed out, this hypothesis does not address why Glanvill sought to defend witchcraft using mechanical methods.4 By shifting the focus of the debate to the religious and political facets of Restoration England, Jobe framed the debate as a conflict between latitudinarian Anglicans, who favored mechanical philosophy, and radical sectarians, who favored chemical philosophy. Mechanical philosophy, in particular, refers to the philosophy that regards the universe as being composed of small particles governed by mechanical principles. In contrast, chemical philosophy, rooted in alchemy, is the field of chemistry and medicine that is primarily concerned with the use of chemical principles and solutions to cure illnesses. Contending that their differences in scientific beliefs are attributable to
2. Thomas Harmon Jobe, “The Devil in Restoration Science: The Glanvill-Webster Witchcraft Debate,” Isis 72, no. 3 (1981): 343-356, https://doi.org/10.1086/352786, 344. 3. John Spurr, “‘Latitudinarianism’ and the Restoration Church,” The Historical Journal 31, no. 1 (1988): 61- 82, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x00011997, 61. 4. Jobe, “The Devil in Restoration Science: The Glanvill-Webster Witchcraft Debate,” 344.
50 SPRING 2021 JASON LEE their theological disagreements, Jobe argued that the separation between spirit and matter is a critical issue that latitudinarian Anglicans and radical sectarians heavily disagreed on. Whereas latitudinarian Anglicans posited that spirit and matter are separate entities, radical sectarians sought to merge the spiritual and the material.5 Discussing the beliefs of latitudinarian Anglicans, Jobe stated that:
Their theology was Anglican and their synthesis favored a mechanical corpuscularism because the philosophy’s separation between spirit and matter supported the view of God’s presence in nature that was clearly implied in Anglican theology: one of a cosmos run by a transcendental deity served by a hierarchy of spirits.6
Jobe thus argued that Glanvill, a latitudinarian Anglican, subscribed to mechanical philosophy because he believed that its emphasis on the separation of spirit and matter is more compatible with his Anglican theology. In turn, Glanvill’s belief in a universe run by God, who rules over all other spirits, could explain why he was more likely to believe in the existence of witches and demonic spirits and used the experimental method of the Royal Society in an attempt to establish the science of witchcraft as an accredited field of study.7
However, more recent scholarship has complicated Jobe’s religious- political explanation of the Glanvill-Webster debate by re-examining its scientific aspects. In her 2012 article, Julie Davies highlighted the key aspects of Joseph Glanvill’s poisonous vapors theory, which outlined his scientific explanations as to why familiar spirits were able to tempt the minds of witches. In brief, Glanvill proposed that familiar spirits produced poisonous vapors that interacted with the bodies of air that came out of witches’ bodies.8 Also referencing Glanvill’s use of naturalistic explanations such as the poisonous vapors theory, Allison Coudert argued that Jobe’s interpretation of the debate as a result of conflicts between latitudinarian Anglicans’ mechanical philosophy and radical sectarians’ chemical philosophy may be oversimplifying the debate.9 Specifically, Coudert argued that Glanvill’s beliefs seemed to contradict those of other mechanical philosophers whereas Webster’s beliefs also defied those of other occultists. Coudert also
5. Jobe, “The Devil in Restoration Science: The Glanvill-Webster Witchcraft Debate,” 345. 6. Jobe, “The Devil in Restoration Science: The Glanvill-Webster Witchcraft Debate,” 345. 7. Jobe, “The Devil in Restoration Science: The Glanvill-Webster Witchcraft Debate,” 345. 8. Joseph Glanvill, A Blow at Modern Sadducism (London: E.C., 1668), 20. 9. Allison Coudert, “Henry More and Witchcraft,” in Henry More (1614–1687) Tercentenary Studies (Dor- drecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), 115-136, 117
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contended that the witchcraft debate was neither clear-cut in terms of scientific theories nor in terms of corresponding religious and political ideologies. Thus, instead of framing the Glanvill-Webster debate as a conflict between scientific, religious, and political forces, Coudert used a non-ideological framework that avoided mapping religious and political ideologies to scientific beliefs. With this framework, Coudert asserted that Glanvill was not primarily targeting Webster or occultism but rather atheism and materialism, which were synonymous for Glanvill. Thomas Hobbes’ 1651 Leviathan, for example, was dangerous in the eyes of Glanvill as it provided natural explanations for spirits and miracles, acts that he criticized as atheistic. As a result, Glanvill, who was aware of how mechanical philosophy could be utilized by materialists like Hobbes, wanted to use mechanical philosophy to prove the existence of familiar spirits and witches, which in his mind corroborated the existence of God.10
The most recent scholarship has further unraveled other societal aspects of witchcraft in early modern England that have been under-addressed. In contrast to how Coudert focused primarily on religion and science in her analysis, Peter Elmer delved further into the political and religious significance of witchcraft before, during, and after the Restoration. Specifically, Elmer argued that witchcraft was often used as a political tool by those who were in power and those who were not. In addition, Charlotte-Rose Millar also provided a systematic analysis of witchcraft pamphlets published in early modern England to highlight the widespread beliefs of the familiar spirit. Such studies are critical in reemphasizing the importance of the politics of Restoration England in the Glanvill-Webster debate. This paper expands on how science was used in the Glanvill-Webster debate to rationalize the belief in familiar spirits for political and religious gains. It also examines how depictions of the familiar spirit in the Glanvill-Webster debate could have affected how historians analyzed the debate by comparing Glanvill’s and Webster’s interpretation of the familiar spirit to the popular conceptions of the familiar spirit as observed in witchcraft pamphlets. As a corporeal demonic spirit that had a fluid nature, the familiar spirit is an interesting case in which a popular belief that long pre-existed the Glanvill-Webster debate was absorbed into the realms of religious theology and scientific theory during Restoration England. As a popular belief that opposing religious and political figures, such as Glanvill and Webster, were competing to define using scientific means, the familiar spirit demonstrates that even though ideological differences in the separation between spirit and matter cannot resolve the paradox of the
10. Coudert, “Henry More and Witchcraft,” 118-119.
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Glanvill-Webster debate, heightened political and religious disputes during this period may still provide partial explanations as to why Glanvill and Webster took their respective nuanced stances on the issue of witchcraft.
Furthermore, considering the gendered biases embedded in Glanvill’s scientific arguments, analyses of science in the Glanvill-Webster debate can also provide insights into the gendering of witchcraft. Given that the victims persecuted for witchcraft in early modern Europe were predominantly women, previous writers such as Marianne Hester and Anne Llewellyn Barstow have equated witch-hunting to “woman-hunting.” These writers mostly referenced the Malleus Maleficarum as the basis for their arguments. Written by German inquisitor Heinrich Kramer in 1486, the Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches, is the
“...demonologists were not necessarily “arch-misogynists” who used witchcraft to denigrate women but conceived of witchcraft under a binary classification system that regarded men as positive and women as negative.”
demonological treatise most often cited as evidence of misogyny among the elite that contributed to a top-down persecution of women as witches.11 Complicating this narrative, however, historians such as Christina Larner have instead contended that “witchcraft was not sex-specific, but sex-related,” indicating that sex, though important, was not the sole factor that determined whether one was labeled as a witch.12 Similarly, Stuart Clark also argued that demonologists were not necessarily “arch-misogynists” who used witchcraft to denigrate women but conceived of witchcraft under a binary classification system that regarded men as
11. Alison Rowlands, “Witchcraft and Gender in Early Modern Europe,” in The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, ed. Brian P. Levack (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 450-466, 450. 12. Rowlands, “Witchcraft and Gender in Early Modern Europe,” 453.
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positive and women as negative.13 Even though historians nowadays have mostly refrained from claiming that demonologists were solely motivated by misogyny, historians such as Alison Rowlands have highlighted how patriarchy in early modern European societies affected witchcraft accusations and persecutions. In her 2013 essay, Rowlands contended that “the patriarchal organization of early modern society was not a cause but a necessary precondition for witch-hunts that produced predominantly female victims.”14
As gender was not regarded as a central issue in Glanvill’s texts, the Glanvill- Webster debate aligns with Clark’s argument that demonologists in early modern England were not necessarily arguing for the existence of witchcraft to target women. However, even though Glanvill did not cite gender in his arguments in support of the existence of witchcraft, his attempt to explain the gendered nature of witchcraft using his poisonous vapors theory was built on pre-existing discourses that contributed to the misogynistic nature of witchcraft. In particular, prior works regarding witchcraft, such as the Malleus Maleficarum, reinforced dichotomous views of gender to justify why women were more likely to become witches. In examining the medical concepts that Glanvill drew on to rationalize why women were more easily tempted by familiar spirits, his scientific framework provides further insights as to how gender and witchcraft in Restoration England were mutually constitutive.
Fluidity of the Familiar Spirit
Previous articles on the Glanvill-Webster debate have mainly focused on their dispute over whether Satan can physically affect the natural world rather than their dispute over the existence of familiar spirits. Although the argument over Satan’s influence in the natural world is indeed a central component of the Glanvill-Webster debate, the role of the familiar spirit in the debate is a critical issue that still largely remains overlooked even though both Glanvill and Webster addressed the familiar spirit in their respective works. However, prior to discussing their respective arguments concerning the familiar spirit, it is important to understand how the general population perceived the familiar spirit.
According to Millar’s analysis of witchcraft pamphlets, the belief in the
13. Stuart Clark, “Women and Witchcraft,” in Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: University Press, 1996), 106-133, 115. 14. Rowlands, “Witchcraft and Gender in Early Modern Europe,” 453.
54 SPRING 2021 JASON LEE familiar spirit had already been widely circulating in the late sixteenth century. Despite the widespread belief in the familiar spirit, as observed in the prevalence of its depiction in pamphlets from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, the origins of the familiar spirit remain unknown. Even though there are disagreements as to whether the belief in the familiar spirit appeared due to beliefs in fairies or beliefs in learned magic and conjuration, most historians nowadays agree that the familiar spirit stemmed from popular English beliefs rather than the beliefs of prominent theologians.15
In these pamphlets, familiar spirits were often conflated with Satan or described as Satan’s demons. As Millar pointed out, witchcraft pamphlets provided varying depictions of the familiar spirit. For one, pamphlets often used phrases such as familiar spirits, spirits, the Devil, devils, and imps interchangeably. While some pamphlets used “the Devil” to imply that the familiar spirit is a corporeal form of Satan others used terms such as “familiar spirits” or “spirits” to imply that familiar spirits are Satan’s demons. A pamphlet published in 1619, for example, stated that “the Devil himselfe will attend in some familiar shape of Rat, Cat, Toad, Birde, and Cricket etc.” A 1612 pamphleteer, on the other hand, described the familiar spirits as minions or servants of Satan by referring to Satan as the “godfather of familiar spirits.”16
The shape of the familiar spirit also varied throughout various witchcraft pamphlets. Even though the most common forms of the familiar spirit were domestic animals such as cats and dogs, there were other cases in which it appeared as exotic creatures or domestic animals with odd characteristics. For example, a 1566 pamphlet included an illustration of a dog with horns and cloven feet.17 Various accounts in pamphlets also described the familiar spirit as appearing in human form. In such cases, pamphlets published since the mid- seventeenth century often included stories of witnesses who claimed to have seen “the Devil” appear as a human being to tempt witches. Although the familiar spirit and the witches are usually seen as cooperating entities, some pamphlets also described the witches themselves morphing into different familiar spirits.18 Thus, not only was the distinction between the familiar spirit and Satan blurred, the distinction between the familiar spirit and the witch was similarly blurred.
15. Charlotte-Rose Millar, Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England (London: Routledge, 2019), 51. 16. Millar, Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England, 66-69. 17. Millar, Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England, 60-63. 18. Millar, Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England, 67-70.
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Understanding the fluid characteristic of the familiar spirit is important in reexamining the Glanvill-Webster debate since the fluidity of the familiar spirit was reflected in the ways in which Glanvill and Webster depicted the familiar spirit in their works. In particular, the variety of terminologies that Glanvill and Webster used to refer to the familiar spirit is akin to the inconsistent usage of phrases throughout witchcraft pamphlets. Glanvill, in particular, preferred to use
“Not only was the distinction between the familiar spirit and Satan blurred, the distinction between the familiar spirit and the witch was similarly blurred.”
“Devils,” “Familiars,” “Spirits,” “Familiar Spirits,” and “Demons” when referring to familiar spirits in A Blow at Modern Sadducism. Although Glanvill’s use of “Devil” could have implied the familiar spirit is either Satan or a demon, he specifically defined Devil as “a name for a body politick, in which there are very different orders and degrees of spirits.”19 Such a definition of Devil is in line with the lack of distinction between Satan and demons in witchcraft pamphlets, given that the word Devil itself can simultaneously refer to Satan or a demon. In the cases in which Glanvill used “familiars,” however, he described familiar spirits as demonic spirits ranked far below Satan. Specifically, Glanvill depicted familiar spirits as vile, inferior spirits that were never “once of the highest hierarchy.”20
Furthermore, although there was also a conflation between the witch and the familiar spirit as observed in the witchcraft pamphlets, Glanvill perceived the two as distinct by arguing that the transformation of witches into the shapes of animals is not plausible. Nevertheless, Glanvill still attempted to theorize why there were testimonials of witches becoming animals. Suggesting that the “airy vehicles” that came out of the bodies of witches are by nature passive and pliable bodies of air, Glanvill argued that those bodies of air could have been shaped by familiar spirits into the appearance of animals. Further suggesting that witches and familiar spirits are distinct, Glanvill also posited that familiar spirits could
19. Glanvill, A Blow at Modern Sadducism, 43. 20. Glanvill, A Blow at Modern Sadducism, 25.
56 SPRING 2021 JASON LEE have had the ability to induce illusions and therefore trick spectators to see the bodies of air coming out of witches as animals.21
Adopting similar phrases that Glanvill used to refer to the familiar spirit, Webster, also used “Devils” while he referred to the discourses of the familiar spirit, in addition to “Familiars,” “Familiar Spirits,” and “Familiar Devils.” Arguing against the existence of the familiar spirit, Webster contended that:
(1) That the Devil doth not make a visible or corporeal League and Covenant with the supposed Witches. (2) That he doth not suck upon their bodies. (3) That he hath not carnal Copulation with them. (4) That they are not really changed into Cats, Dogs, Wolves, or the like.22
Similar to the confusion surrounding Glanvill’s use of “Devil,” Webster’s use of “Devil” can be misleading in how it could imply that either the familiar spirit was Satan or a single demonic spirit. However, while Webster also used “Devils” to refer to multiple familiar spirits, his use of “the Devil” appeared to refer specifically to Satan. Pointing out the lack of theological evidence to support the existence of the familiar spirit, Webster argued that the Bible had “revealed no such thing as the visible appearing of Satan, much less of his making of a visible League with the Witches, or the sucking of their bodies, or the having carnal Copulation with them.”23 Therefore, by describing the familiar spirit as the visible form of Satan, Webster blurred the distinction between Satan and the familiar spirit. As such, Glanvill and Webster most likely held different conceptions of what constituted the popular views of the familiar spirit.
In turn, the fluidity as to what constituted the familiar spirit could be the main reason as to why the familiar spirit had been underplayed in prior articles on the Glanvill-Webster debate as well as other works on witchcraft in early modern England despite its widespread presence. As Millar stated, not only was it difficult to determine the exact origin of the familiar spirit, sometimes it was also difficult to comprehend what figures witchcraft pamphlets were actually referring to since the familiar spirit was oftentimes conflated with Satan.24 Despite how well- developed the concept of the familiar spirit was by Restoration England, there were still coexisting narratives of the familiar spirit as either Satan, a demonic
21. Glanvill, A Blow at Modern Sadducism, 18. 22. John Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (London: J.M., 1677), 63. 23. Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 48. 24. Millar, Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England, 68.
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spirit, or a witch. Since Glanvill and Webster were addressing different narratives of the familiar spirit, historians of the Glanvill-Webster debate likely framed the debate as a dispute over Satan’s ability to physically affect the natural world as a way to circumvent the figure of the familiar spirit that was specific in its function yet elusive in its essence.
Corporeality of the Familiar Spirit
In addition to showing how the familiar spirit is fluid in its relation to both Satan and the witch as well as how varied it is in its appearances, witchcraft pamphlets often described witches forming “demonic pacts” with familiar spirits in exchange for supernatural powers. According to Millar, the fact that witches were perceived as forming pacts with demonic spirits that appeared as domestic animals demonstrates the merging of learned theology with popular belief. Specifically, Millar described the demonic pact as the inverse of covenant theology, which is the belief that one forms a conditional agreement with God upon getting baptized. Instead of forming covenants with God, witches were believed to be forming covenants with Satan. Highlighting the corporeal nature of the familiar spirit, pamphlets also emphasized how demonic pacts can be made via physical interactions between the witch and the familiar spirit. By sucking on the bodies of witches, the familiar spirit is regarded as a key agent to form the demonic pact. As such, witchcraft trials during this time often relied on the presence of the “Witch’s Mark” on those who were accused of being witches.25
The corporeality of the familiar spirit, as observed in the distinct ways it can physically interact with witches, weakens Jobe’s argument that understanding how mechanical philosophers and chemical philosophers disagreed on the separation of spirit and matter is key to resolving the paradox of the debate.26 The case of the familiar spirit refutes the assumption that Glanvill, a latitudinarian Anglican, ascribed to mechanical philosophy because he believed that its emphasis on the separation of spirit and matter was better suited for his Anglican theology. As opposed to being an incorporeal demonic spirit, which would support Jobe’s argument that Anglican ideologies of spirit and matter were compatible with the belief in witchcraft, the familiar spirit was a corporeal spirit that can physically suck on the body of witches.27
25. Millar, Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England, 59-60. 26. Jobe, “The Devil in Restoration Science: The Glanvill-Webster Witchcraft Debate,” 345. 27. Glanvill, A Blow at Modern Sadducism, 17.
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In contrast, the fact that the familiar spirit was perceived as a corporeal demonic spirit that can physically tempt a witch might explain why instead of arguing solely on theological grounds, both of them included some form of a scientific explanation as to why people in Restoration England were witnessing familiar spirits. As opposed to being an incorporeal spirit that one would be unable to explain using scientific methods, a corporeal spirit that can physically target witches and leave visible marks could be perceived as an entity that was more likely elucidated with science. Whereas Glanvill used his poisonous vapors theory to further rationalize the ritual that familiar spirits used to form demonic pacts, Webster used the concept of the astral spirit, a corporeal but non-demonic spirit, to dismiss the testimonial accounts of familiar spirits.
Although Glanvill mostly used testimonial evidence to support his arguments for the existence of the familiar spirit, he was aware of the importance of having Discerning the Familiar Spirit. Asha Malani. scientific theories and experiments to back up his claims.28 In particular, the concept of the familiar spirit coincided with Glanvill’s belief in demonic spirits in the natural world and was therefore adopted into his scientific theories. As observed in A Blow at Modern Sadducism, Glanvill appeared to be familiar with the key characteristics of the familiar spirit, such
28. Julie A. Davies, “Poisonous Vapours: Joseph Glanvill’s Science of Witchcraft,” Intellectual History Review 22, no. 2 (2012): 163-179, https://doi.org/10.1080/17496977.2012.693741, 164.
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as how familiar spirits sucked on witches’ bodies as part of the ritual to form demonic pacts. Noting that the familiar spirits’ sucking on the bodies of witches is “no great wonder nor difficult to be accounted for,” Glanvill contended that there was a possibility that the sucking is “only a diabolical sacrament and ceremony to confirm the hellish covenant.” However, even though Glanvill acknowledged the main observations of the familiar spirit, he also reinterpreted some of the common
“In brief, Webster explained how humans are composed of three components—the physical body that is returned to the earth, the corporeal soul, or ‘astral spirit,”that wanders near one’s body after death, and the incorporeal spirit that is returned to God.”
explanations of them. Arguing that it was likely that familiar spirits did not merely suck on witches’ bodies to form covenants with Satan, Glanvill conjectured that familiar spirits could also infuse “poisonous ferments” into witches. Subsequently, the poisonous vapors would taint the spirit and imagination of witches, who by nature already have “heightened melancholy.” The infection of the imagination would, in turn, give the melancholic humor a “magical tincture” and allow witches to become “mischievously influential.”29
In short, Glanvill argued that the poisonous substances produced by familiar spirits interacted with the melancholic humor already present in witches, which in turn allowed witches to gain supernatural powers. Relying heavily on the concept of Galen’s melancholic humor, which is often associated with physical pathologies that can lead to mental disorders, Glanvill was trying to incorporate contemporary views of melancholic humor by referencing Robert Burton’s 1621 The Anatomy of Melancholy. In particular, the notion that melancholic vapors can cause one to have “absurd thoughts and imaginations” was a dominant theme
29. Glanvill, A Blow at Modern Sadducism, 20.
60 SPRING 2021 JASON LEE in The Anatomy of Melancholy. Therefore, by proposing the poisonous vapors theory, Glanvill was able to combine traditional beliefs of witchcraft with the newer natural philosophical ideas without suggesting any radically new ideas that philosophers during this period were not familiar with.30
Webster, on the other hand, mostly argued on theological grounds to refute the existence of witchcraft. For one, Webster contended that words from the Bible that were synonymous with witches or witchcraft were mistranslations of the original Hebrew text.31 Additionally, Webster also argued that the Witch of Endor in the First Book of Samuel was not actually a witch.32 However, he seemed to be aware of the importance of having some kind of scientific theory to back up his claims. As such, in addition to suggesting that the supposed witches either willingly lied or were coerced, Webster also proposed that witnesses of familiar spirits could have seen “astral spirits” or “animal spirits” instead.33 In brief, Webster explained how humans are composed of three components — the physical body that is returned to the earth, the corporeal soul, or “astral spirit,” that wanders near one’s body after death, and the incorporeal spirit that is returned to God.34 Using this concept, Webster postulated that witnesses of apparitions might have seen astral spirits, which were corporeal natural spirits instead of familiar spirits, which were corporeal demonic spirits.35 Similar to how Glanvill referenced contemporary works that reinterpreted long-standing medical theories, Webster cited fellow physician Thomas Willis’ 1672 Two Discourses Concerning the Soul of Brutes, which provided a novel interpretation of the animal spirit.36 Although Galen presented the theory of animal spirits long before Webster’s time, their actual presence had never been demonstrated even though their existence was widely believed to be critical for normal neurological function.37 Therefore, Willis did not merely reference the presence and activity of these animal spirits, but sought to explain the animal spirits using principles of chemical philosophy.38 Interestingly, similar to the melancholic humor, the animal spirit was also a well-established medical concept that philosophers
30. Davies, “Poisonous Vapours: Joseph Glanvill’s Science of Witchcraft,” 171-172. 31. Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 106. 32. Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 165. 33. Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 308. 34. Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 320. 35. Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 292. 36. Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 315. 37. M.J. Eadie, “A Pathology of the Animal Spirits – the Clinical Neurology of Thomas Willis (1621–1675) Part I – Background, and Disorders of Intrinsically Normal Animal Spirits,” Journal of Clinical Neuroscience 10, no. 1 (2003): 14-29, https://doi.org/10.1016/s0967-5868(02)00165-0, 14. 38. Eadie, “A Pathology of the Animal Spirits – the Clinical Neurology of Thomas Willis (1621–1675),” 16.
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and physicians were still attempting to rationalize. Just as Glanvill was able to present an elaborate theory by citing contemporary work on the melancholic humor, Webster was able to come up with scientific explanations of the familiar spirit by invoking contemporary work on the animal spirit. Even though both Glanvill and Webster sought to provide original explanations for the familiar spirit, both of them referenced long-standing scientific concepts that prominent philosophers and physicians during their time continued to subscribe to and were actively defining.
Gendered Implications of the Familiar Spirit
In “Sleeping with Devils,” Millar further analyzed how the demonic pacts between witches and familiar spirits were often depicted as carnal. Out of the forty- eight pamphlets she studied, twenty-three described the relationship between witches and devils as sexual. In particular, Millar noted that the fluid nature of the familiar spirit affected the nature of the sexual acts between witches and familiar spirits. In addition to being accused of engaging in non-penetrative acts with animal-like devils, witches were also accused of engaging in “carnal intercourse” with man-like devils. Noting that the depiction of witches having sexual relations with man-like devils mostly appeared in pamphlets published after the 1640s, Millar argued that the shift in the types of sexual acts depicted represents a major shift in how the general public perceived witchcraft. Specifically, the fact that the pamphlets depicted witches as sexually deviant beings that engaged in a wide range of sexual acts with Satan and familiar spirits suggests that beliefs in witchcraft in early modern England were more sexualized than previously described.39
Considering how the physical interactions with familiar spirits were often depicted as female witches engaging in sexual acts with animal-like or man- like spirits, the fact that Glanvill did not center his arguments around gender or connect femininity directly to carnality supports the notion that demonologists were not necessarily arguing for the existence of witchcraft to persecute women. Nevertheless, Glanvill did use the gendered biases embedded in contemporary scientific discourses to rationalize the gendered nature of witchcraft, in addition to referencing long-standing scientific concepts due to their credibility. As stated by Clark, the associations that demonologists made between women and
39. Millar, Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England, 117-118.
62 SPRING 2021 JASON LEE witchcraft were based on unoriginal foundations such as Aristotelian physiology.40 Building on this observation, Laura Apps and Andrew Gow also contended that a key reason as to why witchcraft was feminized in early modern England was because demonologists believed that Satan was able to seduce witches due to their “weak-mindedness,” a characteristic that demonologists strongly, but not exclusively, associated with women.41 Such beliefs can be traced back to the Malleus Maleficarum, in which Kramer argued that women had “insatiable carnal lust” due to fundamental flaws such as weak-mindedness, which in turn explained why women were more easily seduced by Satan.42 As argued by Jennifer Radden, strong connections were made between sin, carnality, mental disorder, and witchcraft.43 In line with Clark’s analysis, such connections reaffirmed the dichotomous views of men as intellectually strong and morally righteous and women as intellectually weak and morally corrupt.
In the context of the Glanvill-Webster debate, even though Glanvill did not explicitly state carnality in his arguments that support the existence of witchcraft, he still used well-established medical concepts, such as the melancholic humor, to justify why witches were predominantly women. In A Blow at Modern Sadducism, Glanvill noted that the people most commonly accused of being witches were “poor and miserable old women, who are overgrown with discontent and melancholy.”44 Connecting the concept of the melancholic humor to why certain populations were more prone to be infected by the familiar spirit, Glanvill posited that:
Witches are most powerful upon Children and timorous persons, viz. because their spirits and imaginations being weak and passive, are not able to resist the fatal invasion; whereas men of bold minds, who have plenty of strong and vigorous spirits, are secure from the contagion; as in pestilential Airs clean bodies are not so liable to infection as other tempers. Thus then we see ‘tis likely enough, that very often the Sorceress her self doth the mischief.45
40. Clark, “Women and Witchcraft,” 114. 41. Lara Apps and Andrew Gow, “Conceptual Webs: The Gendering of Witchcraft,” in Gender at Stake: Male Witches in Early Modern Europe (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2003), 118-150, 132. 42. Apps and Gow, “Conceptual Webs: The Gendering of Witchcraft,” 132. 43. Jennifer Radden, The Nature of Melancholy: from Aristotle to Kristeva (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 96. 44. Glanvill, A Blow at Modern Sadducism, 35. 45. Glanvill, A Blow at Modern Sadducism, 29.
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In order to rationalize why certain categories of people were more susceptible to the vapors produced by familiar spirits, Glanvill asserted that there were excessive amounts of melancholic humor in women and children.46 Claiming that the spirits and imaginations of women, children, and other “timorous” people are more “weak and passive” whereas those of men are more “strong and vigorous,” Glanvill ultimately concluded that healthy males were not as prone to infection as other groups who have more melancholy.47 By drawing on the connections between the melancholic humor and weak-mindedness to explain how one transforms into a witch, Glanvill’s arguments coincide with Apps and Gow’s observation that weak-mindedness was inherently linked to witchcraft.48 By using the gendered nature of the melancholic humor to rationalize why witches were mostly women, Glanvill’s arguments also aligned with Apps and Gow’s theory of the asymmetrical triad between femininity, weakness, and masculinity.49 In particular, Glanvill’s discussion of the melancholic humor provided him a physical justification as to how femininity was more closely tied to weakness than masculinity. Because those with excessive amounts of melancholic humor were believed to be predominantly, but not exclusively, women, Glanvill was also able to justify why the people who were accused of witchcraft were mostly, but not exclusively, female.
Despite attempting to persuade others into believing the existence of witchcraft, Glanvill’s theory of witchcraft did not center around its carnal nature. Given the continued prevalence of carnal depictions of familiar spirits in witchcraft pamphlets, it is most likely that many associated witchcraft with carnality before and during Glanvill’s time. As observed in works such as the Malleus Maleficarum, discourses of carnality in witchcraft were often based on the misogynistic assumption that women’s fundamental weak-mindedness was the cause of their moral corruption and carnal desires. In turn, this reasoning was used to argue why women were more likely to engage in sexual acts with familiar spirits and become witches. Rather than building on these discourses that associated carnality with femininity and weak-mindedness, Glanvill seemed to have excluded aspects of carnality from his theories of witchcraft to purify the science of witchcraft. While depicting the familiar spirit’s act of sucking on the witch’s body as non-sexual in A Blow at Modern Sadducism, Glanvill concurred with Webster’s objections to the sexualized depictions of witchcraft by calling
46. Davies, “Poisonous Vapours: Joseph Glanvill’s Science of Witchcraft,” 171. 47. Glanvill, A Blow at Modern Sadducism, 35. 48. Apps and Gow, “Conceptual Webs: The Gendering of Witchcraft,” 131. 49. Apps and Gow, “Conceptual Webs: The Gendering of Witchcraft,” 135.
64 SPRING 2021 JASON LEE the carnal anecdotes of witches “silly lying stories of witchcraft and apparitions among the vulgar.”50 In turn, by not depicting the physical acts between the witch and the familiar spirit as sexual, Glanvill was able to defend the use of science to study witchcraft since his scientific theory was able to rationalize how witches are produced without addressing the aspects of it that could come off as repulsive. However, even by removing misogynistic discourses that accused women of having insatiable carnal lust, Glanvill still provided a scientific theory that contributed to the production of female witches. In comparison to the arguments in the Malleus Maleficarum that discussed weak-mindedness and carnality, Glanvill’s depiction of weak-mindedness did not appear as “arch-misogynist” since he did not portray weak-mindedness as an exclusively feminine trait. Even so, by identifying a physical cause of weak-mindedness and connecting it to the gendered nature of witchcraft, Glanvill still produced a discourse that could allow others who sought to maintain the associations between femininity and witchcraft to strengthen their arguments.
On a similar note, Webster also believed that weak-mindedness was the reason why supposed witches were displaying signs of witchcraft, acts that he called impostures.51 Arguing that Satan could tempt those with more “melancholic temper,” Webster suggested that some of those accused of being witches were mentally insane.52 In contrast to Glanvill, Webster asserted that Satan could only tempt people mentally and not physically in the form of a familiar spirit.53 Even though Webster did address the carnal aspects of witchcraft, his main goal of mentioning carnality was not to reference the misogynistic arguments similar to those found in the Malleus Maleficium, but to contest the reliability of the testimonies that Glanvill relied on. Recognizing the sexual nature of the relationship between witches and familiar spirits, Webster sought to dismiss the idea of the familiar spirit by exclaiming that “pure and sober minds” should not seek to understand “unclean stories.”54 As Davies pointed out, Webster was not able to come up with a concrete scientific argument to refute Glanvill’s novel interpretation of the familiar spirit.55
Although Glanvill and Webster were arguing over the existence of
50. Joseph Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus (London: J.C., 1681), 8. 51. Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 8. 52. Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 66. 53. Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 241. 54. Webster, The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 68. 55. Davies, “Poisonous Vapours: Joseph Glanvill’s Science of Witchcraft,” 178.
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witchcraft and familiar spirits, they both agreed on similar concepts such as the melancholic humor and weak-mindedness. Furthermore, they also both seemed to be wary that others could overrun their theories with arguments of carnality and condemned these uncontrollable and offensive aspects of witchcraft. The figure of the familiar spirit, in particular, was of indeterminate form as observed in the various pamphlets that described its fluidity and carnality. Whereas Glanvill’s naturalistic interpretations downplayed the sexual nature of familiar spirit, Webster’s discussion of witches’ carnality mainly centered on its moral
Rationalizing the Spirit. Asha Malani.
offensiveness. In doing so, Glanvill and Webster seemingly purified the discourse of witchcraft to empower yet defend science.
Political Implications of the Familiar Spirit
The fact that the familiar spirit was a popular belief of witchcraft is crucial in examining any political motives that Glanvill potentially had to use his scientific methods to rationalize the familiar spirit. As a belief that did not stem from either political or religious authorities, the ways in which it merged with religion suggests that attempting to explain it using scientific methods could be considered a political act in itself. Given that Restoration England was a period in which the monarch was simultaneously the head of the restored Anglican Church, religious
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“Whereas Glanvill’s naturalistic interpretations downplayed the sexual nature of familiar spirit, Webster’s discussion of witches’ carnality mainly centered on its moral offensiveness.” failures, such as being labeled a witch, were also regarded as political failures since allegiance to Satan would be regarded as a complete rejection of Christian society.56
Concerning the politics and religion of Restoration England, Peter Elmer argued that disputes over witchcraft are heightened during periods of political instability. In particular, the ruling elite was more likely to act upon incidents of witchcraft at times when they perceive threats or challenges to their sense of religious and political order. Conversely, during periods of political quiescence, fewer incidents of witchcraft were brought to court. However, Elmer also proposed that witchcraft functioned in two contradictory ways. On one hand, witchcraft performed “an integrative role to reinforce normative behaviors and reaffirm the social, religious and political status quo.” On the other hand, witchcraft also performed “a subversive role to encourage criticism of the ruling powers, particularly when they were rendered vulnerable to challenge by broader political events.” As such, the eventual political and religious outcome was unpredictable — the politics of witchcraft during this period was dangerous. If its integrative role prevails, the ruling powers would be strengthened with greater societal cohesion that reinforces the beliefs of those in power. If its subversive role prevails, the large presence of witchcraft in society would likely be perceived as divine disapproval of the ruling powers.57
In addition to political instability, skepticism over the existence of witches and the familiar spirit due to the lack of solid evidence to support them further heightened the dangers of witchcraft. Although the concept of the familiar spirit
56. Millar, Witchcraft, the Devil, and Emotions in Early Modern England, 59. 57. Elmer, Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England, 7-8.
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was widespread and specific in terms of how it interacted with the witch, people were still uncertain as to whether the familiar spirit was Satan, a demon, or a witch as there were widely differing testimonial accounts of the familiar spirit.58 Despite widespread skepticism concerning witchcraft in early modern England due to the inconsistent narratives of the familiar spirit and witches, very few people dared to publish such views of disbelief due to fear of political and religious repercussions. This is likely connected to the fact that one could be labeled as an atheist for not believing in the existence of witchcraft. Similar to how being labeled as a witch was simultaneously a religious and political failure, being labeled as an atheist was also considered seditious during a period in which the Church was also the state. Although Coudert argued that fighting atheism was likely the key motivation for Glanvill to publish A Blow at Modern Sadducism, the fact that atheism is also a major political offense suggests that Glanvill could have also had political intentions in arguing for the support of witchcraft and equating the denial of witchcraft to atheism.
However, prior to examining Glanvill’s potential political motives, it is critical to acknowledge that views on witchcraft were not associated directly with certain religious factions or scientific groups. As discussed by Michael Hunter, the 16-month delay in The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft receiving an imprimatur and the suppression of Webster’s dedication to the Royal Society are possible indications of dispute within the Royal Society over the topics of witchcraft and occult practices.59 As Glanvill himself was a vocal advocate of the Royal Society’s “new science,” the fact that The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft was still ultimately published by the Royal Society demonstrates that neither belief nor disbelief in witchcraft was directly associated with certain scientific or religious ideologies. Therefore, a similar non-ideological framework that Coudert used is critical in further examining the political incentives that Glanvill possibly had to argue for the existence of witchcraft as it steers clear of mapping religious, political, and scientific ideologies to views on the existence of witchcraft. However, it is also important to recognize that the use of a non- ideological framework, which avoids discussing theological disputes as the main factor behind political and scientific differences, should not exclude the tracing of political forces to different religious factions. Considering that religion and politics in Restoration England appear to be more interrelated compared to their
58. Millar, Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England, 50. 59. Michael Hunter, “John Webster, the Royal Society and The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (1677),” Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science 71, no. 1 (December 2016): 7-19, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2016.0022, 7.
68 SPRING 2021 JASON LEE relations with science, the political motivations of opposing religious factions to argue for or against the existence of witchcraft should still be accounted for in discussions on the political implications of the familiar spirit.
In the context of Restoration England, disputes between religious factions greatly contributed to political instability. During an era in which clergymen in the restored Church established a strict Anglican orthodoxy, religious nonconformists, including Presbyterians as well as radical sectarians, were excluded from political, religious, and legal involvement. As a reaction to this mistreatment, many nonconformists sought to preserve a worldview that bolstered the prominent belief in witches, demons, and spirits. Not only did this worldview reinforce how God allowed evil forces to punish those deemed sinful, but it also
“Glanvill and Webster seemingly purified the discourse of witchcraft to empower yet defend science.” served as an indirect way for nonconformists to criticize those in power.60 For a brief period, some nonconformists found support from latitudinarian Anglians in the Church due to their sympathy for the nonconformists, many of whom were their former colleagues. In particular, latitudinarian Anglicans including Joseph Glanvill were eager to widen and therefore redraw the boundaries of the Anglican communion in order to make them more inclusive of other religious factions such as Presbyterians.61 Although Glanvill highlighted atheism as his main motive in A Blow At Modern Sadducism, he also argued that the religious divides within the Church were distracting Christians from more concerning issues such as “modern sadducism” and how it could potentially lead to atheism.62 Since the familiar spirit was such a prominent issue that had not been properly explained with “reason,” it is likely that Glanvill was politically motivated to use “new science” to corroborate the existence of the familiar spirit and witchcraft with the ultimate goal of uniting the Church against a common enemy on moral grounds. Complicating Coudert’s theory that Glanvill’s main concern was simply atheism and that atheism was a
60. Elmer, Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England, 179. 61. Elmer, Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England, 175. 62. Elmer, Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England, 216.
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grave concern of Christians regardless of religious faction, Elmer’s analysis of politics and religion in Restoration England suggests that Glanvill’s interest in combating atheism was likely not just out of a fear of increasing atheism but also out of a desire to use atheism as a cohesive tool that can unite several religious factions with the Church. As such, whereas nonconformists seemed to be arguing for the existence of witchcraft for subversive purposes, Glanvill appeared to be arguing for the existence of witchcraft to integrate certain religious factions back into the Church.
Conclusion
Understanding the fluid, corporeal, and popular nature of the familiar spirit is key to recontextualizing the Glanvill-Webster debate. The fluid nature of the familiar spirit, as observed in witchcraft pamphlets as well as Glanvill’s and Webster’s depictions of the familiar spirit, was likely the key reason why the familiar spirit was mostly underemphasized in prior discussions of the Glanvill- Webster debate. Furthermore, the corporeal nature of the familiar spirit was likely critical in motivating Glanvill and Webster to supplement their arguments with widely accepted scientific concepts such as the melancholic humor and the astral spirit. Moreover, by denouncing how the familiar spirit’s physical role in the formation of the demonic pact was sexualized, both Glanvill and Webster presented how science can provide cleaner and more impartial explanations of witchcraft or supposed signs of witchcraft. Nonetheless, although neither Glanvill nor Webster discussed gender as the main issue in their works, the gendered nature of the melancholic humor allowed both of them to rationalize why witches or supposed witches were mostly, but not exclusively, women. Lastly, the popular nature of the familiar spirit suggests that Glanvill was also politically motivated to argue for the existence of witchcraft. Specifically, Glanvill’s discussion of “modern sadducism” and its connections to atheism likely served as an integrative device to unite certain religious factions with the Church.
This paper highlights the importance of accounting for the multifaceted roles of the familiar spirit as a political, physical yet fluid figure in the Glanvill-Webster debate and how a non-ideological framework can be used to demonstrate how science influenced politics and religion in Restoration England. Coudert was able to use a non-ideological framework to demonstrate that Glanvill was not simply trying to attack occultism or Webster, but rather atheism in general. Using a similar framework, this paper demonstrates, in addition to atheism, Glanvill likely had political motivations to reintegrate certain religious factions back into
70 SPRING 2021 JASON LEE the Church. As this framework allows for analyses of witchcraft in early modern England that avoid relying heavily on ideological dichotomies, future work could benefit from using this framework to further explore the complex relations of science, politics, and religion in the Glanvill-Webster debate.
RICE HISTORICAL REVIEW 71 THE ROLE OF THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Levack, 450-66. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
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Webster, John. The displaying of supposed witchcraft wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of deceivers and impostors and divers persons under a passive delusion of melancholy and fancy, but that there is a corporeal league made betwixt the Devil and the witch...is utterly denied and disproved: wherein also is handled, the existence of angels and spirits, the truth of apparitions, the nature of astral and sydereal spirits, the force of charms, and philters, with other abstruse matters. London: Printed by J.M. and are to be sold by the booksellers in London, 1677.
JASON LEE (AUTHOR) Brown College, ‘21 Jason Lee is a senior from Brown College majoring in Sociology and minoring in Medical Humanities. While not studying the history of science and medicine, he enjoys learning new languages and visiting museum exhibits. After graduation, he hopes to attend medical school and learn more about the social, humanistic, and policy aspects of medicine.
JULIA KIDD (ARTIST) Sid Richardson College, ‘21 Julia Kidd is a graduating senior from Sid Richardson College dou- ble majoring in Art History and Visual and Dramatic Arts with a con- centration in Studio Art. Julia is also a dedicated writer, which plays a significant role in her artwork where she utilizes elements of sto- rytelling to subvert well-known literary and visual symbols as well as reinterprets contemporary societal issues as an exploration of the all-consuming facets of human nature. Julia is an incoming student in UH’s Masters of Fine Arts Painting program, where she hopes to continue her studio practice as well as become qualified to teach Studio Arts and Art History at the collegiate level. Make sure to follow her artistic journey on her Instagram @j.kiddart.
ASHA MALANI (ARTIST-PHOTOGRAPHER) Will Rice College, ‘23 See page 33.
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